Shopping and mornings

I'm a bit of a shopper; I like a browse round the shops on my lunch break and I'm lucky enough to do a job near town that has good lunch breaks. 

One of the ways I'm motivating myself to keep going with training (apart from not letting everyone down of course!) is to resist the urge to shop and "award" myself things I want when I reach certain milestones. I've got my eye on some things once I can run a mile, believe me.

But today I fancied a look around TK Maxx and with the mornings as cold as they are, I couldn't not buy this Saucony top. It's long sleeved but without a hood and has a zip neck. It's pretty thick and I'm looking forward to trying it out on my next run. I'm finding some of my V-neck tops are really pulling on my neck which is unpleasant. I got it out to put away and realised it has a light on the sleeve! How neat is that? I didn't even realise and this really pleases me as I hate the dark mornings so much. 

That said, this was my view at 8am as I finished today's run:

It was much more invigorating at the end of a run than heading back into the house in the dark like last week. I did go out a lot later but hey, whatever helps get you out of the door, eh? I'm hoping that this cold, dark time of year will be the worst for training for me. I find the cold air really affects my throat - not my breathing so much, just uncomfortable after a while. I'm really not a morning person either so it's all the more amazing I get up to go outside to run. I don't feel like I'm running for myself though, I'm running for those women who I know are going through hell and if I can help in this way, getting out of bed in the dark isn't really much to ask.